the administration wanted to clean increase in the debt ceiling. when we were facing a potential disaster because of reluctance on the part of congress to raise the debt ceiling. we saw a solution which we hope would not be put in place. no one expected it to be put in place. the idea was to have a commitment mechanism we wouldn't need to force us to make better policy decisions on the sequester. and in the negotiations, what i was referring to was the fiscal cliff negotiations at the end of last year, where the matters were very close. the president did not ask for more revenue in those negotiations. he actually asked for less. he had 1.6 trillion in his budget, came down to 1.2 trillion. i will point out charlie the president has done unusual he's kept his last offer on the table. he didn't retreat and say no i want to go back to that original figure. he kept some very difficult offers on the table to reach a bargain, including entitlement reforms. and so the president has been looking for a balanced way to do this. and in some sense it's the oth